What is Polling vs Webhooks?

Turkish: Polling ve Webhook Karşılaştırması

Polling vs webhooks compares scheduled status checks with event-driven callbacks for keeping integrated systems synchronized.

What is Polling vs Webhooks?

Polling and webhooks are two ways for systems to share state changes. With polling, the client asks “is there anything new?” on a schedule. With webhooks, the provider sends a callback to the receiver as soon as an event occurs.

When Polling Fits

Polling is simple, keeps control on the client side, and works when a system cannot expose a public callback endpoint because of firewall or network restrictions. The tradeoff is wasted API calls, quota pressure, and delayed detection when the interval is too long. Long polling can be used as a middle ground for some near-real-time cases.

When Webhooks Fit

A webhook is a better model for events such as payment completed, order cancelled, shipment delivered, or document signed. Response time is shorter and empty checks are avoided. The receiver must still handle signature verification, retries, idempotent processing, and event ordering.

How to Choose

For critical events that should be handled quickly, webhooks are usually preferred. Polling is practical when the provider does not support reliable callbacks or the receiver cannot expose an endpoint. In larger integrations both patterns may appear together: a webhook announces that something changed, and the application fetches the detailed state through an API. Event-driven architecture turns those callbacks into a broader system design.